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Do you trust your therapist?

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I really struggle with trust @oakleaves and I find that I might be seeming to be developing trust with my T but then a small change can cause me to suddenly reset and feel like I lack trust again. What you are describing, looking out for things constantly to show he doesn't care or shouldn't be trusted, I do that too. My T has just returned after some weeks leave. I was trusting him fairly well before then, but now I am doing just as you describe, looking for signs that he is not trustworthy, ultimately looking for danger. I have also shared lots of horrible memories with this T previously, in fact I have known him on and off for over a decade, he has not given me a reason to not trust him but still... I don't always.

And it does make a difference to me that he is male, it links to one of the key perpetrators of my abuse and that can trigger mistrust but it also means that continuing on is so beneficial as is the relationship. Keep expressing yourself to your T and the troubles your facing and how silly you feel because your trust has regressed, that helps me. My T is reassuring like yours and he often reminds me that considering what I've been through it is totally understandable that I'm going to have difficulty with trust at times.

Hope it improves for you. 😁
 
This is really a very complex question and on face value it seems simple do you trust? But in reality, one may ask what is trust in therapy?

I remembered one time having the guts to say to my (ex) therapist in one area I feel I trust her but in another area, I do not trust her. Now today, I know this is a great exploration for therapy (and I was in transference) and it meant I was coming to terms with trust issues from the past. It is hard to believe what my therapist said. She said sometimes I feel your mother is in the room! OMG! She was perhaps right but god how deaf was she! I was unconsciously attempting to work through my own trust issue in the here and now; and she jumped the gun too far where it did not belong. It was a real empathetic failure if there is a one...actually it felt like gas-lighting to me at the time. I was reaching out to connect with her, and not only was I completely rebuffed or rejected by her; but also I was pushed aside to a past traumatic memory that probably I was not ready to deal with until I worked with this my trust issue with her. i did not have the strength to face not trusting my mother as a toddler and what that may entail for my body. It is suffice to say, we both never recovered from that incident after trying few times to repair it and it was just so basic that I lost faith/trust in her; but weirdly, I woke up to my own trust in myself and never look back. By breaking up with her, I gained trust in making that decision and recovered a lost part of me. It was a painful decision but one I am proud of today. Even a bad relationship sometimes teaches us what we need.

Not sure this answers your question but I remembered the pain and the humiliation I felt in trust issues in therapy. Trust in us and others is huge...and hope this little anecdote helps you.
 
I wanted to come back to this because I had a session the other week. I think I just anticipate being dismissed even if he does the 'therapist thing' of being validating so I can't take it in maybe. Maybe it just takes time. There are things I want to talk about but I hold back because I know if I got the wrong response or whatever I would just withdraw and I am paying for this so I don't want that to happen and waste the time. I think because it is emdr that makes the session a different process to the usual talking therapy which I know and is fine but when he tries to talk the session through and have more exploration I just want to close it down because I don't want him to try at the moment I just want to be cross which is definitely some sort of weird projection or anger at something else.

I do think self to self trust is important too and I definitely have overall grown and made progress in relating to the different parts of myself with more warmth and compassion but the adult me I often feel frustrated with so not sure how people make sense of that. Like I am not good enough for the 'younger parts' of myself or whatever.
 
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